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The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill
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The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill
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| Chicken Nugget Coop |
| Photo: Robert Stolarik for The New York Times |
British graffiti artist Banksy is known all over the world for his subversive street art. He uses ingenious stencils to force viewers to look at a familiar image or trope in a new, and often disturbing, light.
His first official exhibition in New York City opened yesterday, and it is true to his classic style of shock-and-think, but his medium is not spray paint but sculpture. The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill opened in a storefront at 89 Seventh Avenue South, in Greenwich Village. Melena Ryzik of The New York Times describes the animatronic critters that populate the shop in her article, "Where Fish Sticks Swim Free and Chicken Nuggets Self-Dip".
“Open for Pet Supplies/Rare Breeds/Mechanically retrieved meat” says a sign in front of the shop. Bales of hay dot the sidewalk, along with a kiddie dolphin ride, wrapped in a fishing net like the day’s catch. But it is the leopard in one of the storefront windows that stops passers-by first. “Is that — real?” a woman asked on Wednesday, peering at a large furry object perched on a tree branch, its tail swinging.
It’s not: it is an ingeniously arranged fake fur coat. The robot monkey is more lifelike: it sits, breathing, in a cage inside the store, wearing headphones, holding a remote and watching a television clip of some fellow monkeys in an amorous moment.
A rabbit wearing a pearl necklace files her nails in a window; the coop in the next one has chicken nuggets with legs, busily dipping themselves in sauce.
Inside the store, hot dogs and sausages squirm like snakes in sand-filled terrariums, and the floating fish sticks are so lifelike that a visitor tapped on the tank, as if to get their attention.
Ryzik also reported on Banksy's reasoning behind his unusual exhibition.
“I wanted to make art that questioned our relationship with animals and the ethics and sustainability of factory farming,” Banksy said in a statement distributed by a publicist, “but it ended up as chicken nuggets singing.”
The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill, 89 Seventh Avenue South (near Bleecker) runs through October 31. It is free to the public.
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